Damon Albarn Says Blur Are Going on Hiatus Again: ‘It’s Too Much for Me’
Blur is going on hiatus again following their recent reunion, which yielded their ninth studio album, The Ballad of Darren.
In a new interview with French magazine Les Inrockuptibles (via Far Out Magazine), Blur frontman Damon Albarn said, “It is time to wrap up this campaign. It’s too much for me. It was the right thing to do and an immense honor to play these songs again, spend time with these guys, make an album, blah-blah-blah.”
The band — comprising guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree — wrapped up their last scheduled shows together in South America last month.
Albarn did leave the Blur door open, telling Les Inrockuptibles: “I’m not saying I won’t do it again; it was a beautiful success, but I’m not dwelling on the past.”
The band first called it quits in 2003, but since 2009, they’ve played a handful of reunion shows in the U.K. and abroad every few years. In an interview about their “most unexpected” return after an eight-year hiatus and new album, James told Rolling Stone, “Blur has always been an effortless, joyous, weightless kind of experience… All the years in the world fall away, and it’s just the four of us and the music in the room, and nothing’s changed since that first rehearsal 35 years ago.”
The Blur and Gorillaz musician told the French publication that there is new music on the horizon coming from him soon, including an “opera which will be presented in Paris next year,” as well as reuniting with Jamie Hewlett in India to “start working on a new Gorillaz album.”
Meanwhile, Coxon is set to hit the road in the U.K. with The Waeve, the band with partner Rose Elinor Dougall, as openers for Elbow’s 2024 U.K. arena tour, NME reports.